The head of the family. The man of the house. The breadwinner. Dad. Just some of the endearing terms attributed to the number one man in our lives. The great pillar of strength to whom we always look for wisdom and guidance.
Father’s Day honors all our fathers and is celebrated every third Sunday of June. Like Mother’s Day, it is also observed in other countries in the world, albeit on different dates.
Father’s Day has had a rather tumultuous history ever since Sonora Dodd, a loving daughter of a Civil War veteran, founded the occasion in 1910 in honor of her father, who single-handedly raised six children.
The event has encountered much resistance due to the public’s perception that the movement was just an attempt by enterprising individuals and companies to duplicate their commercial success with Mother’s Day. The observance wavered in support, impact, and awareness for several years, having been rejected by Congress at least twice.
Through perseverance, the advocates finally saw some light with President Lyndon Johnson’s 1966 proclamation of Father’s Day to be celebrated every third Sunday of June. That was further bolstered when President Nixon confirmed the event as a national holiday in 1972.
For many years now, we have looked forward to Father’s Day as a special day to show our appreciation to all fathers for their steadfast perseverance in making sure we all have bright futures.
The popular ways of manifesting our gratitude are giving traditional gifts like ties, pipes, hats, caps, handkerchiefs, shaving implements, and the like. Some offer greeting cards with a “little something” conveniently tucked in.
The more affluent give holiday cruises, golf club sets, professional quality cameras, customized guns and other hunting implements, cars or motorbikes, even yachts, and private airplanes. But nothing beats a long-awaited visit, a hug, kiss, handshake, arms around the shoulder, and a good old conversation maybe over a few bottles of a local brew.
Take your dad on a quiet fishing trip, a good game of golf, tennis, or stay home and exercise the brain with chess. Help your dad clean or change the oil on that old car, cut the grass, trim the hedges, repair the roof, and other fixer-uppers in the old house.
Others go to church for services to bless the day. Some see a basketball game or even NASCAR racing that is held and dedicated to dads. Some also participate in local chapter banquets of Lions, Rotary, Kiwanis, or any other civic groups in which the fathers are members.
Of course, Father’s Day will not pass without some family gathering or meals. They don’t have to be grand. The important thing is to give credence to the patriarch for his fortitude and strength, perseverance, and sheer will to get up each morning to face another day of challenges, just so his family would have a roof over their heads and food on the table.
To further celebrate the great dads in our lives, we have come up with some of the best Father’s Day quotes from famous dads and other people throughout history. We hope these will inspire you on this grand occasion.
Happy Father’s Day to all the great Dads!
Father’s Day Quotes
A father is someone you look up to no matter how tall you grow.
Unknown
Having a kid is like falling in love for the first time when you’re 12, but every day.
Mike Myers
The greatest mark of a father is how he treats his children when no one is looking.
Dan Pearce
The heart of a father is the masterpiece of nature.
Abbé Prévost
Fathers, be good to your daughters. You are the god and the weight of her world.
John Mayer
Dads are most ordinary men turned into heroes.
Pam Brown
Dads are most ordinary men turned by love into heroes, adventurers, storytellers and singers of song.
Unknown
My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person: He believed in me.
Jim Valvano
A dad is someone who wants to catch you when you fall. Instead he picks you up, brushes you off and lets you try again.
Unknown
What we become depends on what our fathers teach us.
Umberto Eco
I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection.
Sigmund Freud
When my father didn’t have my hand, he had my back.
Linda Poindexter
It’s the courage to raise a child that makes you a father.
Barack Obama
It doesn’t matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was.
Anne Sexton
Any man can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a dad.
Anne Geddes
No man I ever met was my father’s equal, and I never loved any other man as much.
Hedy Lamarr
Happy Father’s Day Quotes
The older I get, the smarter my father seems to get.
Tim Russert
My father didn’t do anything unusual. He only did what dads are supposed to do—be there.
Max Lucado
It’s an ongoing joy being a dad.
Liam Neeson
Dad, your guiding hand on my shoulder will remain with me forever.
Unknown
The power of a dad in a child’s life is unmatched.
Justin Ricklefs
[My father] has always provided me a safe place to land and a hard place from which to launch.
Chelsea Clinton
Never is a man more of a man than when he is the father of a newborn.
Matthew McConaughey
Being a daddy’s girl is like having permanent armor for the rest of your life.
Marinela Reka
A father is neither an anchor to hold us back, nor a sail to take us there, but a guiding light whose love shows us the way.
Unknown
No one in this world can love a girl more than her father.
Michael Ratnadeepak
A father is the one friend upon whom we can always rely. In the hour of need, when all else fails, we remember him upon whose knees we sat when children, and who soothed our sorrows; and even though he may be unable to assist us, his mere presence serves to comfort and strengthen us.
Émile Gaboriau
Old as she was, she still missed her daddy sometimes.
Gloria Naylor
When you need real understanding, when you need someone to care, when you need someone to guide you … A father’s always there.
Thomas J. Langley
What a father says to his children is not heard by the world, but it will be heard by posterity.
Jean Paul
There should be a children’s song: ‘If you’re happy and you know it, keep it to yourself and let your dad sleep.’
Jim Gaffigan
There will always be a few people who have the courage to love what is untamed inside us. One of those men is my father.
Alison Lohman
A father is someone who carries pictures where his money used to be.
Unknown
Every son quotes his father, in words and in deeds.
Terri Guillemets
I learn things from my kids constantly. Most of their knowledge comes from Snapple caps.
Jimmy Kimmel
Best Father’s Day Quotes
Dad taught me everything I know. Unfortunately, he didn’t teach me everything he knows.
Al Unser
A good father is one whose only reason for putting down a laughing baby is to pick up a crying one.
Linda Poindexter
Just taught my kids about taxes by eating 38% of their ice cream.
Conan O’Brien
A man knows when he is growing old because he begins to look like his father.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Being a dad isn’t just about eating a huge bag of gummy bears as your wife gives birth. It means being comfortable with the word hero.
Ryan Reynolds
You can tell what was the best year of your father’s life, because they seem to freeze that clothing style and ride it out.
Jerry Seinfeld
A father is neither an anchor to hold us back nor a sail to take us there, but a guiding light whose love shows us the way.
Unknown
A father is a banker provided by nature.
French proverb
A 2-year-old is kind of like having a blender, but you don’t have a top for it.
Jerry Seinfeld
A father is a man who expects his son to be as good a man as he meant to be.
Frank A. Clark
To a father growing old nothing is dearer than a daughter.
Euripides
You don’t have to deserve your mother’s love. You have to deserve your father’s. He’s more particular.
Robert Frost
What you teach your children, you also teach their children.
Unknown
By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he’s wrong.
Charles Wadworth
Father’s Day Love Quotes
The quality of a father can be seen in the goals, dreams and aspirations he sets not only for himself, but for his family.
Reed Markham
Being a great father is like shaving. No matter how good you shaved today, you have to do it again tomorrow.
Reed Markham
I talk and talk and talk, and I haven’t taught people in 50 years what my father taught by example in one week.
Mario Cuomo
To her, the name of father was another name for love.
Fanny Fern
Lately all my friends are worried they’re turning into their fathers. I’m worried I’m not.
Dan Zevin
Dads are like chocolate chip cookies; they may have chips or be totally nutty, but they are sweet and make the world a better place, especially for their children.
Hillary Lytle
An almost perfect relationship with his father was the earthly root of all his wisdom.
C.S. Lewis
A father’s words are like a thermostat that sets the temperature in the house.
Paul Lewis
My father gave me my dreams. Thanks to him, I could see a future.
Liza Minnelli
[Fatherhood is] the greatest thing that could ever happen. You can’t explain it until it happens; it’s like telling somebody what water feels like before they’ve ever swam in it.
Michael Bublé
When you’re young, you think your dad is Superman. Then you grow up, and you realize he’s just a regular guy who wears a cape.
Dave Attell
My father didn’t tell me how to live. He lived and let me watch him do it.
Clarence Budington Kelland
It is not flesh and blood, but the heart which makes us fathers and sons.
Johann Friedrich von Schiller
My father had a profound influence on me, he was a lunatic.
Spike Milligan
I realized being a father is the greatest job I have ever had and the greatest job I will ever have.
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
You gotta love dads. At my wedding, when I tripped on my wedding dress and fell flat on my face, Dad said, “Don’t worry, you’ll do better next time.”
Melanie White
She did not stand alone, but what stood behind her, the most potent moral force in her life, was the love of her father.
Harper Lee
The greatest thing a father can do for his children is love their mother.
Anjaneth Garcia Untalan
A good father is one of the most unsung, unpraised, unnoticed, and yet one of the most valuable assets in our society.
Billy Graham
To further celebrate the great dads in our lives, we have come up with some of the best Father’s Day quotes from famous dads and other people throughout history. We hope these will inspire you on this grand occasion.
Happy Father’s Day to all the great Dads!
